Roughly 80 students representing some 30 schools
will descend upon Salt River High School Saturday for the Vex IQ Robotics Tournament.

“I’m excited because it’s fun to work as a team and compete,” said seventh-grader Ty Brugier, one of
six SRHS students heading into this weekend’s tournament. SRHS will be represented by two teams of
three junior high students. “The coolest thing is driving the robot.”

The teams will face two challenges, with the overall goal of scoring the most points on a 4’x8’
rectangular field with robots snapped together using an intuitive, toolless system, said Nathan
Remington, who coaches the SRHS robotics team.

Points for each challenge are made by robots placing “hexballs” into the team’s various scoring areas,
as well as technical know-how for parking and balancing robots.

“The students are hoping to win the event in either the teamwork challenge category or the skills
category,” said Remington, who teaches the SRHS robotics class and seventh grade math. “The
teamwork category is the main event in which our team is randomly paired with other teams and they
compete to score as many points as possible. In the skills challenge our team is competing solo to score
as many points as possible.”

A win in either category would take SRHS to the state tournament in March, where the team lost by
small margin last year. “We hope to go this year and win, which would allow us to compete in the world
championship in Kentucky against teams from all over the world,” Remington said.

The school offers junior high and high school students a class in robotics; SRHS has been competing in
robotics tournaments the last several years. At a tournament last fall, the junior high team earned a
special judge’s award, despite not winning the event.

“This tournament is much larger than most of us realize, as it truly is a national competition. Knowing
that, it is impressive that our students are typically competing with students much older and yet they
continue to be very successful,” said SRHS Principal Jon Gentile. “This tournament is yet another
avenue that allows SRHS students to demonstrate an array of talents and I look forward to the growth
of the program.”